This invention relates to business systems and, more specifically, to an improved data processing arrangement for providing a relocation management and reporting system for personnel movement, e.g., employees transferred from one location to another.
Supervising reimbursement paid to relocated employees, and administering and recording of expenses incurred in the transfer, can be time consuming and burdensome to an organization which frequently transfers employees. Maintaining consistent relocation reimbursement policies within an organization can be especially difficult where individual evaluation of the submitted expenses is required. One person evaluating a particular request may allow it while another evaluator may not--a condition giving rise to employee dissatisfaction and morale problems. Moreover, the permissible benefits for relocation may vary depending upon the employee's job level status further complicating expense reimbursement administration. Finally, different organizations may have different policies, standards and procedures and thus may provide different amounts of reimbursement for different categories. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a relocation management and reporting system which is adaptable to varying company needs and which is operable without the need for substantial management supervision.
The payment of differential mortgage expenses attendant the sale of the employee's house in the old location and the purchase of a house in the new location presents particularly difficult problems. Rarely is it found that the transferred employee purchases a house for the same price and the same mortgage rate as his previous home. Frequently one or both of the first and second houses may have more than one mortgage at differing rates and terms. Additionally, if the employee desires to "trade up" or purchase a more expensive home, the employer may not wish to provide a relocation benefit for the increased equity on the new home.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide an automated relocation management and reporting system.
It is another object of this invention to provide an automated relocation management and reporting system in which the reimbursement policies may easily be defined, altered, maintained and consistently applied.
Another object of this invention is to provide an automated relocation management and reporting system which can be operated by relatively unskilled operators, and which does not require inordinate management supervision.
It is another object of this invention to provide an improved management and reporting system in which the relocation reimbursement benefits may be made dependent upon the job level of the employee.
Still other objects of this invention will become apparent upon a reading of the detailed specification to follow.
To these ends, a relocation management and reporting system for processing reimbursement requests for employees who have been transferred is provided. The system includes a data base for storing and retrieving information regarding such as the transferred employee, the types of expense which will be reimbursed, the limits of reimbursement for each expense category, running sub-totals of amounts spent to date for each category, and mortgage data relating to the transferred employee's old and new dwellings. Set up, data entry and reporting proceeds through a series of nested menus that may be individually and, optionally, directly addressed. Upon entry of a request for reimbursement, the data and expense category is verified and the expense category limit and the amount spent to date are retrieved and processed to determine if the predetermined limits have been exceeded. Among the expense categories, the system permits reimbursement for increased mortgage interest paid on the new dwelling. All authorized allowances are calculated and paid in accordance with predefined reimbursement policies enters into the data base.